Africa Climate Change Leadership Program
The Africa Climate Leadership Program (AfriCLP) is a grants awards program that recognizes and incentivizes exemplary individuals and organizations to build leadership capacity in response to climate change. The awards programme seeks to build local climate change leaders who can shape understanding of the extent and severity of climate-related stressors on African economies and ecosystems, and propose solutions on how countries can build resilience to these impacts. The Programme is funded by IDRC and managed by the University of Nairobi and the Institute of Resource Assessment (IRA) - University of Dar es Salaam.The program aims to build on these past investments by IDRC to achieve sustainability and impact at scale.
The overall objective of the program is to develop leadership capacity of African researchers, policy advisers and practitioners for advancement in current climate knowledge, long-term adaptation.
AfriCLP’s mission is to foster the development and application of innovative thinking and approaches to the complex causes and solutions to climate change.
Program Impact
Improving Resilience to Climate Change
The programme seeks to contribute to strengthening resilience to climate extremes by improving the ability of communities and governments to adapt to changes, anticipate what might happen next and absorb climate shocks when they do come along. We support different types of studies. We welcome descriptive studies meant to clarify the mechanisms for reducing vulnerability to climate change. We also seek intervention studies that improve the measurement of resilience in ways that will enhance the works of researchers,practitioners, or policy makers.
Improving the Use of Research Evidence
We seek to empower fellows to build theory and empirical evidence on ways to strengthen the connections between research evidence, decision making, and climate change adaptation and preparedness. Our focus on improving the use of research evidence aims to identify, create, and test strategies to ensure that research reaches the hands of decision makers, answers their most pressing questions, and is used in ways that benefit vulnerable communities in Africa.
Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice
In addition to awarding research, career-development, and mentoring grants in our three primary focus areas, we seek to strengthen connections between research, policy, and practice through limited communications and capacity-building activities. Through the programme, we seek to build sustained research-practice partnerships with public agencies or nonprofit organizations in order to improve decision making in the area of climate change adaptation and preparedness.
Host Institutions
TIDRC has funded several climate change (CC) programs in Africa. One of these is the ‘Research Grants on Innovative Application of ICTs in Addressing Water-related Impacts of Climate Change’ (ICTWCC), hosted at the University of Nairobi. It sought to develop and sustain high to mid-level research capacity in climate change, with a specific focus on the innovative application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to address water-related impacts of CC. A second program is the African Climate Change Fellowship Program (ACCFP) program, run by the Institute of Resource Assessment (IRA) in the University of Dar es Salaam, promotes innovative adaptation research in Africa. The African Leadership Program is a collaborative effort between ICTWCC, hosted at The University of Nairobi and ACCFP program run by the Institute of Resource Assessment (IRA) in the University of Dar es Salaam
